Greek bronzes . had allowed them to be cast inbronze. There may have been some etiquette limiting the production ofsuch figures. That we do not know ; but certainly not a few of ourstatuettes are of such excellence that we can hardly believe them to be thework of minor craftsmen, notwithstanding the extraordinary skill we seeoccasionally displayed by those other craftsmen, the vase-painters. We have almost no direct information as to how far bronze statuetteshad been employed by the Greeks for the adornment of their dwelling-houses. We know that Alexander the Great carried about on his cam-pai
Greek bronzes . had allowed them to be cast inbronze. There may have been some etiquette limiting the production ofsuch figures. That we do not know ; but certainly not a few of ourstatuettes are of such excellence that we can hardly believe them to be thework of minor craftsmen, notwithstanding the extraordinary skill we seeoccasionally displayed by those other craftsmen, the vase-painters. We have almost no direct information as to how far bronze statuetteshad been employed by the Greeks for the adornment of their dwelling-houses. We know that Alexander the Great carried about on his cam-paigns a small bronze Heracles, the work of his favourite sculptorLysippos. In Roman times Sulla carried in his bosom when in battle a GREEK BRONZES 7 small figure of Apollo, and much the same is told of Nero and ofHadrian. We may fairly conjecture that the desire to be surroundedin their homes by beautiful bronzes had been customary among the well-to-do people of antiquity. Pompeii and Herculaneum were essentially. Fig. 2.—Bronze work, about 400 British Museum. Greek towns. Possibly enough the luxury of private life may have beengreater there than in the older cities of Greece proper. But even makinga liberal allowance of that kind, we should still be struck by the numberof beautiful bronzes in the museum of Naples, collected from the ruins ofprivate houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum. In many instances these 8 GREEK BRONZES bronzes were attached to pieces of furniture, or were kept in show-cases,as nowadays. Larger specimens stood on pillars. These bronzes areexclusively of Greek workmanship, and we may fairly suppose that inGreece itself there had prevailed a more or less similar degree of house-hold taste. At present we have at all events this testimony, that in Greektombs of the best age there are frequently discovered bronze mirrorssupported on statuettes of great beauty, as also circular mirror-casesgrandly enriched with reliefs, as in Fig. 2, with i
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